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Babel Reversed
Acts 2:3-11
Do you remember the account of the Tower of Babel? These people shortly after the flood, they all had one common language, one common people, and they were determined to make a great name for themselves. They were going to build especially this tower, this great tower that would reach to the heavens. In a very real way these people were becoming arrogant and they were thinking, why do we need God? We can make ourselves God. We can reach ourselves into the heavens, and God comes and realizes this is not good. The people are not trusting in me. They’re not caring about having a relationship with me. They’re trying to supplant me and do without me. And so, God, it’s actually a merciful, loving thing, what he does, he causes them to depart from one another by confusing their language. And so at this point in time, as Scripture teaches, many different languages were created by God. And so the people had to depart and go their separate way by language.
What do we see happening though at Pentecost? Do you remember Pentecost? Let me share these verses with you about Pentecost from Acts chapter two. You remember this blowing of the wind. Tongues of fire. And then the disciples, they went out and they preached. It’s very interesting, this detail.
They saw divided tongues that were like fire resting on each one of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, since the Spirit was giving them the ability to speak fluently. Now there were godly Jewish men from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. When this sound was heard, a crowd came together and was confused, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. They were completely baffled and said to each other, “Look, are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them speaking in his own native language?Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, and of Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya around Cyrene; visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes; Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring in our own languages the wonderful works of God.”
What’s going on here? Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit comes, he reverses what took place at Babel. At Babel, there were all these languages that divided people. But now at Pentecost, God brings them back, not for their own glory, not because they can supplant God, but because God knows that they need him and he desires us to gather together as his people. And so he shares with all these different, diverse groups of people a common thing, a common thing, and in their own languages. He shares with us something that we continue today with the saints throughout history to rejoice in together as one people. And that’s the Gospel message of Christ. The Holy Spirit comes and he joins us back together, not in a spirit of arrogance, where we try and supplant God, but we rally around and we rejoice in the God who has won our salvation. The God who was proclaimed on Pentecost by Peter as the one who has now forgiven us our sins, who has opened heaven to us. And that’s the message that the apostles were sharing.
And so we are invited too to rejoice in that common language of the gospel with all of our brothers and sisters, even though they might have different backgrounds, even though they might speak different languages, we rejoice in the fact that they are fellow Christians who are forgiven, redeemed citizens of heaven with us in Christ. So as we celebrate Pentecost, consider how God has undone that division that we caused and that man caused, and especially then that those people, in their arrogance, trying to kick God out of their lives, caused. And he now unites us around the gospel of our Savior Jesus. What a blessing that is. God’s peace be with you.
